Dumfries and Galloway MP Alister Jack has met with the UK Government’s Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, The Rt. Hon Matt Hancock MP, and handed over the results from his broadband survey.

The local MP asked constituents to respond to a series of questions using an online survey on his website about their broadband service.

On the question of broadband speed the results were are follows:

Under 2mbps: 46.2%

Under 10mbps: 5.6%

Between 2mbps – 5mbps: 23.9%

Between 5mbps – 10mbps: 10.5%

Between 10mbps – 15mbps: 4.6%

Between 15mbps – 20mbps: 3%

More than 20mbps: 6.2%

When respondents were asked what they used their broadband service for 57% said they used it for business purposes.

“This is one of the biggest issues that I am contacted about and I was pleased that Matt Hancock took the time to meet with me and receive the results personally.

“There is no doubt that poor broadband speeds is a huge impediment to economic growth here in Dumfries and Galloway. Many small and medium sized businesses, the vast majority of which are independent traders, rely on their broadband connections to do business, and it is very frustrating when they cannot access the necessary speeds to do so.

“For many people in my constituency a decent broadband connection is a luxury. People want and deserve better and I will continue to use my role in Parliament to campaign for greater improvements to our broadband infrastructure.”

Upon receiving the survey results Mr Hancock said, “I was pleased to receive the results from Alister’s very successful broadband survey in his Constituency, which my department will review. I fully recognise the importance of a fast and reliable broadband connection, particularly in rural areas such as Dumfries and Galloway. The UK Government are fully committed to ensuring that 100% of properties have access to superfast broadband by 2020. It is disappointing that the Scottish Government have missed their target of 95% in a number of areas of the country, including in Dumfries and Galloway, and that is why the third tranche of funding will be distributed straight to Local Authorities.”

A large number of respondents included additional comments with their submissions. A few of these are copied below.

“Very slow and has a lot of drop outs on a daily basis. Had engineers out numerous times but never seems to improve much. Broadband download speed are rarely above 1.2mb/s which makes doing anything online very slow and sometimes impossible.”

“We run a small engineering business and have to rely totally on the internet to be able to download tender documents etc. and are finding it practically impossible. Our Broadband provider has informed us that our bad service is because of our rural location and our distance from an outdate exchange.”

“It sometimes sits at 0.2 and drops altogether 6 to 10 times a day. My kids are at a disadvantage and put under extra pressure with assignments and deadlines at school. Often meaning late night struggling re setting the router all the time.”

“The Broadband service to our property is disgraceful. We pay for a service which we do not receive most of the time. I run a small business which is my only source of income and this relies on internet access and a decent speed. This is just not happening. This year (2017) I have lost 3 weeks of business due to faults on the line, slow speed and the lack of help from BT.”